Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Gremlins: The Greatest Christmas Movie...Evar!

I'm sure some of you will argue with me about this, and I welcome a hearty discussion, but as far as I'm concerned, the greatest Christmas movie ever has got to be Gremlins. I truly get a warm fuzzy feeling when I watch this movie.

It kicks off with one of the greatest holiday songs, "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)", which as it turns out happens to be David Letterman's favorite Christmas song. For the longest time, I knew that as the Gremlins Song, only later learning it was a regular song before this movie. What the hell ever, it's still the Gremlins song as far as I'm concerned.

As with most Christmas themed movies, you have a parent who is out to get the best gift for their child. In this instance, we've got a dad who back-alley wheels and deals and gets his kid a mogwai, henceforth known as Gizmo. And of course, craziness then ensues.

I won't go into the details of the plot, you know them already. The part that sticks out for me and is the first thing I recall about this movie is the cookie making scene. The mom is toiling away making decorative Christmas cookies, with "Do You Hear What I Hear" playing in the background. The song skips and something is awry...

Okay, here is where I was going to embed the video of this scene, but for some reason, the person who loaded the video on YouTube has disabled embedding, so instead, you must make yourself be un-lazy and click this link to view the full scene.

Oh god! When that thing senses her and turns around! That used to creep the crap out of me! Oh, and man, when she blends and then microwaves them! Nothing says Happy Holidays like gremlins popping in the microwave, nom nom nom!

Another memorable scene is the 'Memories of Santa' scene, where Kate, the girlfriend, recalls how she came to hate Christmas...

Yeah, that might ruin your Christmas. The thing is, now it's pretty laughable. In fact, they make fun of this whole scene in Gremlins 2, where Kate recounts the President's Day from hell. Good times!

You know, I could sit here and recount this whole movie and each and every fantastic scene (there are so many of them), but I won't. I urge you to go out and rent this movie and watch it with the family this holiday season. However, I will leave you with little nugget